Day Into Night (36 page)

27

I'M JARRED AWAKE a few hours later by an earthquake. The ground vibrates, timbers shake and groan above my head. The train takes only a few minutes to pass. My adrenaline rush takes longer. I picture a truck thumping along the rail bed, a train coming around the bend.

Carl, smiling. Don’t worry about it —

I shake my head, creep into the bushes. The valley is steep, the willows dense. I follow a narrow game trail to a sandbar speckled with deer and elk tracks. There are bootprints here too, leading to the water’s edge and back. Carl’s tracks — I’m vaguely annoyed he left tracks visible to the river and sky. I’ll take a drink of water then smooth over both our tracks.

The river water tastes of rocks and sediment.

I’m about to smooth over the tracks when I notice something that causes an apprehensive tingle. Carl’s track is a perfect imprint in the damp sand, clearly showing a gouge in one lug, a prominent nick in another. Accidental characteristics I’ve seen before.

A thousand boots could leave a print like that, I tell myself, trying to shake off the notion as I climb the steep trail up the river valley. Mosquitoes hiding under leaves swarm around me. So do disturbing thoughts. The Emperador cigar box and gunpowder in Carl’s basement; the cake pans in the Forest Service cache. Carl owns a two-wheel-drive Chevy pickup, which fits the suspect vehicle type from the last fire, and he depends on the overtime that fires bring. But all these things can be explained away and I’m ashamed, thinking he could be the arsonist.

He’s my friend, helping me in my time of need.

Still, there’s a lingering doubt; my paranoia is in full bloom. He’s been keenly interested in my arson investigation and I can’t help wondering if this is more than professional curiosity. His bootprint looks like a perfect match; I had a pretty good look at the print found at the last fire as Dipple demonstrated proper casting technique. I sit in the shade of the bridge abutment and worry. I’m a fugitive — looking at a long stretch in prison if I can’t sort this out — and Carl could turn me in at any time. This is ridiculous — an unhealthy distraction. I’ve got to clear this from my conscience.

I can’t afford to doubt Carl.

The Caprice Classic isn’t parked on the curb anymore but the back door of the ranger station is locked. It’s an old building with wooden windowsills, no security. I test the windows, discover a downstairs window can be persuaded, slide it open. It’s dark inside and I wait a moment while my eyes adjust. Long table, chairs, coffee percolator — I’m in the conference room. A car passes on the road, chasing a rectangle of light across the wall. Going up the stairs I hear voices but it’s only radios — the nightly soap opera as towerpeople talk to one another, bare souls and share their loneliness. A computer monitor projects green light through the doorway of the duty room like something out of an alien abduction movie. I could be on the X-Files but it’s not those types of files I’m looking for. The personnel files are in a cabinet behind the clerical desk.

The cabinet is locked but fortunately the keys aren’t well hidden.

Carl’s file is easy to find. I pull it out, lay it open. In this light, everything around me is grey, mirroring my mood. I don’t much care for what I’m doing but can’t stop thinking about it. The burn rate of a well-ventilated Emperador cigar leaves plenty of time to drive from the last fire to Curtain River. I compare Carl’s time sheets against the dates of the arson fires. Two of them were on weekends when Carl didn’t work. Three were on days Carl had off — casual illness or holidays. Another coincidence? Maybe, but I remember something Carl said.

... fire is a natural process, Porter —

Carl is into natural processes. He tans animal hides, eats wild meat; his technological concessions are limited to a refrigerator and antique phone. But I’m having a hard time picturing Carl as an arsonist. Just doesn’t mesh with the Carl I know, sitting in the duty room directing fire fighting. Out on the fireline, leading crews.

When it comes right down to it, you never really know people.

“Looking for something?”

I kill my flashlight, slam shut the cabinet.

“Jesus Christ, Carl. You scared the hell out of me.”

He stands in the doorway of the duty room, silhouetted in pale green light. He must have been in the duty room and I wonder how long he’s been watching me.

“Carl, what are you doing here with the lights off?”

He gestures toward the duty room. “Listening to the show.”

There’s something in his hand — a beer bottle. How many has he had?

“The show? Right ... What’s going on tonight?”

Carl takes a drink. “Old Gabe is putting the moves on that new tower girl.”

“Oh, really.” I try to sound casual. “Where’s she at?”

“Sheep Mountain,” he says. He seems steady enough when he walks. I move away from the file cabinet and there’s an awkward pause as we stand in the dark. In the background, Gabe Peterson’s voice is a ghost from the ether. A younger, more impressionable voice answers — Gabe is making progress. Unfortunately, he’s 80 miles away and stuck in a lookout tower. Carl takes another swig of beer, looks toward the file cabinet.

“What were you looking for?”

“Tapes,” I say quickly, the shock wearing off. I’m not sure I sound believable but I need an explanation to avoid the real reason I’m here. In the back of my mind, a half-formed plan begins to solidify. “I was looking for audio tapes. I thought there might be some blank tapes in the cabinet. The little ones, for the answering machine.”

“There’re no tapes in there,” he says.

“I noticed.”

“You should have asked. I could have helped you.”

“I did. I went to the house but you weren’t home.”

There’s a pause, Carl glancing out a window toward his house. “How did you get in?”

“The back door. You didn’t hear me?”

He shakes his head, sits on the edge of the desk. In the oblique light coming from the duty room he’s frowning, probably trying to remember if he locked the back door, which he did. “Why do you need tapes for the answering machine?” he asks finally.

“They’re not for the answering machine.”

“What are they for?”

“I’ve got one of those small recorders for taking notes —”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a plan. I’ll need your help.”

“Sure,” he says without much enthusiasm.

“But we don’t have to do it tonight — if you’re not up to it.”

He staggers a bit as he stands. He may already have had too much to drink.

“Let’s do it,” he says. “I’m tired of waiting.”

After Carl leaves to make preparations, I sit in the duty room with the lights off, watch the screen saver. I’m not sure he bought my story about looking for tapes. I’m not sure we’ll actually carry out this half-baked plan. I’m not really sure of anything. But I’ve got a phone handy and about a half-hour to kill. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, we won’t have to do anything. I dial up Cindy’s borrowed cell phone.

“What?” she says. “Again?”

“Again.”

“Let me get the kids ready this time.”

I give her a few minutes, punch up Telson’s cell phone, let it ring 20 times but get no answer. Where could she be at this time of night? She’s a big girl, packs a .45, but I’m still worried, frustrated I can’t just go over there. I call Cindy again.

“Okay —” She’s a bit breathless. “I’m ready.”

I listen to her punch numbers, wait while the dispatcher puts me through to wherever Rachet spends his nights. He’s a bit groggy but it doesn’t take him long to wake up.

“Christ Cassel, you could call during the day —”

“I’m pretty much a night crawler lately. What did you find out about those skin cells?”

“The skin cells — right. The lab is still working on those.”

“Did you get a sample from Brotsky to match against?”

Shuffling sounds — Rachet getting out of bed, no doubt frantically signalling his wife to call in for a trace. “It’s not that simple Cassel. To take a DNA sample from someone you gotta have reasonable grounds — a court order. You can’t just go around sampling people —”

“You don’t think you have reasonable grounds?”

A faint click — I’ve gone public. “Hardly,” he says.

“Did you check Brotsky’s basement?”

“Yeah, we checked it. What exactly did you think we’d find?”

“You didn’t find anything?” I’m disappointed but not surprised.

“A darkroom,” says Rachet. “An enlarger. Hardly illegal.”

Brotsky works fast. “And his car?”

“Claims he had it crushed a few months ago —”

“What about the union angle?”

“— which fits with his insurance, which also expired a few months ago. As far as Hess rabble-rousing for the union, no one seems to know anything about it.”

“Or they’re not talking —”

“Always a possibility,” Rachet says. “Why are you so hung up on this guy?”

If I have to explain, they’re obviously not making progress. I’m about to ask about Brotsky’s fingerprints at the crime scene but realize it doesn’t matter — his prints could be at Petrovich’s trailer for any number of reasons. Unlike mine.

“Any luck with that resumé?”

“The resumé —” Rachet grunts. “Look Cassel, we’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this. Best thing for you is to come in before some over-eager local yokel puts a bullet in you. Your face is all over the news. Just how far do you think you’re going to get —”

“As far as I have to.” At least they’re buying my ruse.

“This isn’t good,” Rachet says. “You’re not making this any easier —”

I hang up — they’re not getting anywhere and I don’t have time for idle chatter. Something occurred to me while I was on the phone — something that worries me more than being the prime suspect in Petrovich’s murder. I don’t want to but I return to the file cabinet, check farther back into Carl’s work record, before the fires started. I take the file into the duty room, sit at the desk and read the yellow attendance records by the light of the computer monitor. As I flip back through the records and check dates I get a sick feeling. Almost every time the Lorax struck, Carl was off work. Except once — the bombing which killed Nina. And for that, he wouldn’t have to take time off work.

This is ridiculous — Carl is my friend.

A friend with an overdeveloped environmental conscience, frustrated at having many of his penalty recommendations dismissed. What was it he said that night in The Corral? Sometimes I think the damn Lorax accomplishes more than the Forest Service. Maybe he called me down here out of more than friendly concern. Maybe he called me down here to keep tabs on my investigation.

Both investigations — he’s asked a lot of questions.

I stare at the wall map, mentally noting the locations where the bombings and arsons occurred. I could be misinterpreting Carl’s friendly concern — an option I prefer — but the bombings stopped after Nina was killed. Then the fires started. The boot-print and cigar box. Like finding the point of origin on a fire, one clue is meaningless, but many clues tend to point the way. Too many little things are starting to make sense. Once, when Carl and I were buddied up on an inspection of a geophysical program, driving new cutlines through the bush, we came across a powder mag in a clearing. Boxes of dynamite to be used as underground charges sat in the bright winter sunshine, unlocked and unguarded. Look at that, says Carl. Someone could steal a box or two and they would never know. At the time, it seemed an idle comment. Now, it doesn’t seem so idle — the Lorax used seismic gel.

It can’t be Carl — but I dig a little deeper, just to make sure.

I return the file to the cabinet, stand in the dim ranger station. The tower people have signed off for the night and the only sound is the faint hum of radios. In the duty room I hesitate before dialling the phone. It rings for a long time. The voice that answers is still half asleep.

“Yeah?”

“Bill, it’s Porter.”

A pause. I picture Bill sitting in bed, trying to wake up. Bed springs creak. “Just a minute,” he whispers. “I gotta switch phones so I don’t wake the old lady.”

I watch the screen saver on the monitor; a high-tech lava light. A minute later there’s a click, the scrape of a chair. Bill comes back on line, sounding winded like he just played the last half of a gruelling football game. “What’s going on, Porter?”

“You been watching the news lately?”

“Yeah, I been watching. Why’d you run?”

“Why? Why do you think? They were watching me when I went to get the knife.”

“It doesn’t look good, you taking off like that —”

“Save the sermon, Bill. I know how it looks. I didn’t have much choice.”

I’m expecting some sort of retort but Bill is silent.

“I need another favour, Bill.”

“What a surprise,” he says. “What are we talking about this time?”

“Can you access the Canadian Bomb Data Centre?”

“Maybe. Why? What’s up?”

“I need you to run a search on stolen seismic gel.”

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

“The Lorax used seismic gel.”

“I see,” says Bill. “That’s very interesting. But why do you need to search the database? You have a suspect again? One that’s still alive?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a suspect.”

“You’re not missing any more knives are you?”

“Bill —”

A pause. “Okay. How far back do you want to search?”

Through the duty room window I watch a car cruise past. A Caprice Classic.

“Go back eight years. When can you do it?”

“I’ll have to wait until morning, when the office opens.”

I glance out the duty room door. Carl’s kitchen light is on. “I need to know now.”

“It’s not that simple, Porter. I’m not a cop anymore. I gotta call people, wake them up, ask them for favours in the middle of the night. It’s not very endearing, believe me.”

“I thought the Mounties worked twenty-four-seven.”

“Some of them,” says Bill. “Not the guys I gotta call.”

“You remember Carl Mackey?”

“Mackey?”

“That ranger I used to work with — the one who called me down here after the bombing.”

“Oh — right.”

“He’s my suspect, Bill. And he’s the guy who’s been helping me out.”

“Okay,” Bill says quietly. “I’ll do what I can. Give me an hour.”